Mr GROOM (Darling Downs) (Minister of Home Affairs)
- - The Brisbane Post Office is utterly inadequate for the accommodation of the officers who have to work there. It was proposed, prior to Federation, to spend £130,000 upon the construction of a new building, and that amount was on the Estimates submitted to the first Parliament. The Commonwealth pays £720 for the rental of two buildings - one of them an old theatre - which are at some distance from the post-office, to give the necessary accommodation, but the arrangement is inconvenient, and increases the difficulties of administration. The proposed extension is to provide a parcels office, accommodation for the mail room branch, a telegraph operating room, accommodation for the accounts branch, strong rooms, a dead letter office, accommodation for the checking branch, accommodation for the correspondence branch, new detective galleries, and other requirements. The whole matter has been carefully considered, and the expenditure proposed is the minimum justified.